


Letting Go

by tupperwaregoods



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Multi, anakin has body issues, and loose, polyam - Freeform, soft, there's a lot of self projection and idealism in this but why not?, they're on holiday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 03:55:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19715719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tupperwaregoods/pseuds/tupperwaregoods
Summary: Padmé has come with Thrawn and Anakin to a family holiday home in the countryside of Naboo. She can't wait to go to the lake with them, but unfortunately Anakin suddenly isn't feeling up to it.





	Letting Go

Padmé leaned onto the railing of the balcony as she took in the vast verdant plains that stretched out before her. She was still dressed in her orchid night gown, the silk cascading like a gentle stream from her collar down to an inch from her feet. Nowhere else could you see such untouched beauty – lush trees rustling in the gentle breeze, birds singing as they darted about across the overhanging canopies, pristine white clouds migrating lazily across a deep blue sky – all in fluid motion as the sun cast a resplendent golden glow upon the land. After subjecting herself to the gloomy haze and buzzing traffic of Coruscant, this was as close to paradise as she could get.

For as long as she could remember, this two-storey holiday home had been a big part of her family. Before she took on the mantle of Queen at 14, the Naberries would relocate here for an entire month every summer, where they would spend countless hours tumbling about the rolling plains or becoming wrinkly in the lake. In the evenings, they would reconvene to play table top games by the warm light of the living room, afloat on the fleecy cushions of their sofa while slowly nipping away at dinner on their plates. However, after being elected, and subsequently taking on the role of a senator, she’d almost forgotten about this place. Yet it seemed like it tried hard not to forget her – now, returning after so many years, somehow the smooth sandstone exterior of the house remained almost as bright as it’d always been. Inside, the sofas still sagged slightly where she and Sola used to bounce vigorously out of mischief, and the concrete walls retained marks of coloured crayons; photos of her childhood there remained steadfast even as her own body began to change in the annals of the constantly revolving galaxy.

To return here was unexpected, really. It’d been suggested to Padmé by her parents, since Sola and her children were off planet this season. At first, she felt slightly guilty for jumping at the opportunity. She definitely didn’t come home to Naboo often enough, so to spend it away from her own family, and for herself, felt strange. But her parents had reassured her: “We can see that you need this,” they’d said. “And besides, the lake is beautiful this time of year. The waters are just the right temperature for a healing soak.”

Padmé loved swimming – it was very different from floating in zero gravity, which she did not like, and allowed a more vigorous use of one’s muscles – or so she felt. Nowhere in the galaxy could she recall clearer waters; yes, there were planets that she still hadn’t even heard of, but she was happy to take the liberty of expressing such a statement. She also liked that out of the many physical things Anakin excelled in, somehow swimming was one of the few that she bested him in. He wasn’t a bad swimmer in any way, but in a timed lap race she would always leave him behind and breathless. She was like a Naboo Whale, and he like a Pelikki – one was just more at home among the waves. Multiple rematches by Anakin’s request had proved that it was a fact and not a mere fluke. But that had been before they got married, even before Geniosis, and she couldn’t deny her impulse to defend this particular achievement.

“Ambassador,” a sonorous voice came from behind her, “you have not yet changed into your aquatic wear?” 

Padmé couldn’t help but laugh at the use of ‘aquatic wear.’ It was idiosyncratic. “Thrawn,” she answered, “I’m currently off-duty, you don’t have to—oh!” 

She had begun to swing around, so as to face him, but the sheer sight of his appearance stopped her not only mid-sentence but in mid-motion. Thrawn stood characteristically upright, his hands neatly tucked behind his back, but instead of his Chiss Expansionary Defense Force uniform, his tactical gear, or his modest underclothes of vest and leggings – the only outfits she had ever seen him in – he wore black swimming briefs with a stark red lining at the waistband and a thin, white button-up shirt, left unbuttoned, flapping slightly in the wind. 

Padmé found herself mesmerised by his dark blue skin, the way it devoured the diffused sunlight and, for a moment, placed him at the centre of the universe. All this admiration somehow escaped from her lips as a hoarse clearing of the throat — as if she had just walked in on a date while they were indecent. Thrawn didn’t react to her brief loss of composure, but surely he had picked up on it, though maybe he wouldn’t at all understand why.

“As I was saying,” she continued, “you can just call me Padmé, especially when we’re on vacation.” Now she smiled with genuine sincerity. “You look good.”

“Thank you, Padmé,” there was a slight tonal emphasis on her name. “I have never worn anything resembling this. As you may be aware, Csilla is an ice-capped planet. There is no use for an outfit that barely provides cover – it guarantees no warmth nor protection.”

“Why don’t you come over here,” Padmé beckoned to him, “stand next to me. Right here.” Thrawn marched over, placing himself right under the soft glare of the sun and did as she suggested. “Now close your eyes and just feel.” As Thrawn obeyed, Padmé watched him with fond eyes. Something about this, perhaps the act of imparting a new perspective to someone she cared about, reminded her of the time she frolicked in the field with Anakin. She felt acutely aware of how things had changed since then, for better and for worse. But at this particular moment, she could not see beyond the good. When Thrawn re-opened his eyes, she asked, “How do you feel?”

“It is interesting. I have been under the sun countless times during missions off-planet, but it has only just occurred to me that I have never let its warmth caress the bare surface of my body in such a manner.” Thrawn slowly drew his hands over his arms, then round his neck, as if patting in an invisible lotion. “Thank you, Padmé.”

“You’ll definitely love it even more by the lake. It’s the same sun, sure, but something about the cool water on your skin really adds another dimension to it. Speaking of,” Padmé pushed herself off the railing and headed back into the house, “I should get changed so we can depart. It’s not a secret spot – it’s uncommon, but sometimes others do turn up later in the day. It’ll be much more fun to have it all to ourselves.”

“Ah, there is actually a reason why I approached you on the balcony.” Thrawn said.

“What do you mean?” Padmé continued brisk-walking towards the bedroom. Luckily for Thrawn, his long strides meant it did not require much for him to match her pace. “Where’s Anakin? Is he ready to go?” At the end of her question, Padmé reached the bedroom door and jiggled the door handle – only to find it locked.

“I could not get Anakin to come out,” Thrawn finally added.

\---

Padmé gently tapped on the door. “Ani, are you all right?”

There was no answer.

“I had attempted a similar approach earlier, also to no avail,” Thrawn said. He looked genuinely downcast as they stood waiting for a response. His hands were overlapped in front of him, as if being reprimanded by a superior for having failed a mission – or so Padmé imagined; she found it hard to believe that the Chiss would be able to comprehend failure.

Padmé tried again, her tone even more soothing than before. “Ani, if you don’t tell us what’s wrong we can’t be do anything for you. Please, what’s the matter?” Again there was silence, but suddenly they heard the sound of someone mumbling behind the door. “Ani? I couldn’t hear you.”

“I said I don’t want to go anymore!” he yelled, before quickly bringing down his voice a few notches, “I’m sorry, forgive me. Just go without me, all right? I’m not feeling well.”

Not feeling well? She knew her husband like the back of her hand, so it was obviously a lie. There had been times in the past when he was sick and she wanted him to stay in, insisted on it, but he would deny the fact even as his body burnt up with a fever to pick up his lightsaber. There must have been something else that was wrong, something even more grave than being sick. Padmé decided to take thing into her own hands.

In front of the door was a simple, brown foot mat. “Thrawn, could you move back a little?” Padmé bent down and lifted the mat – hiding underneath it was a key. She picked it up, inserted it in the keyhole and proceeded to unlock the door, doing it with extreme care to avoid making a sound. Before pressing down on the door handle, Padmé turned to Thrawn once more, bringing her index finger to her lips. He nodded in acknowledgement, and together they gingerly pushed the door open.

The room was a mess. The old, wooden standing cupboard to the nearest wall, which Anakin used exclusively, was left open, his clothes taken out and strewn all over the floor with loose hangers mixed in the folds. Padmé and Thrawn had to trudge through the wreckage to reach the sprawling king-sized bed, where the clear outline of a familiar body lay on the side closest to the windows, huddled underneath a swath of blankets, only a small sliver of light illuminating the room through the drawn curtains.

Thrawn halted a few paces from the bed, as if worried to approach without consent, while Padmé took the initiative to walk round the side and planted herself on the edge of the mattress, next to Anakin. As her weight caused a dip, the silhouette of Anakin’s body visibly tensed up. “How did you get in?” he asked.

Rather than answering him, Padmé pulled back the covers, revealing Anakin lying on his side facing towards her and the windows, dressed in a plain T-shirt and his swimming shorts. She didn’t say anything, instead opting to run her hand through his hair with careful, repeated strokes. It looked like he’d been crying – whether out of frustration or sadness, it was the only time Padmé would see him with such puffy eyes. Even facial injuries in combat never elicited such a physical reaction.

She knew that waiting was all that could be done.

Sure enough, Anakin spoke of his own accord. “I can’t go swimming the way I am.”

“You’re not feeling well?” Padmé moved to hold his cybernetic hand, but he withdrew it.

“No, he is not physically unwell,” Thrawn suddenly piped in. “It seems like it is more that he is lacking…courage to do so.” Now he had moved several steps closer to Anakin, but still maintaining a tasteful distance. “Am I correct?”

Anakin grunted in response. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right as always.” Something Padmé noticed since Thrawn had joined them was his uncanny ability to knock the humour back into Anakin without making an obvious joke of it. Initially it had seemed to her that his cold exterior and monotonous voice precluded empathy, but it gradually dawned on her that the Chiss truly worked in mysterious ways, and had his own method of offering support. Padmé, too, had felt it when he had come by her side whenever Anakin was called away on duty. In time she began to see how Thrawn complemented her, the way she could have specific intellectual discussions with him about issues within the senate or the republic, things that sometimes evaded Anakin’s focus. Sometimes he even brought her new reading material he had gathered on his own travels and asked for her thoughts on it after. 

She had Anakin and she had Thrawn – both simply fulfilled her in different ways. Whenever she caught herself reflecting on this, she would feel incredibly grateful.

As she looked into Anakin’s eyes – still a little red – she felt her love for him welling up inside her, coursing through her body. Again she tried to hold Anakin’s hand, in fact deciding to reach for both, and now he allowed her to do so. She held on tight, while gently stroking the top of each hand with her thumbs. She didn’t look down to where they touched; enough time had passed that she no longer consciously felt a difference in his cybernetic arm. It was his body – that’s all it had ever been. Yet in feeling this, Padmé formed an idea of what might have started this.

“Is it about your arm?” she asked.

“No—well, yeah, but that’s not just it,” he cut off, growing silent again with his brows knitted together as if deep in thought.

“I’m listening,” Padmé tenderly encouraged him. 

From her side, Thrawn added, “To articulate the thoughts from one’s heart can be a challenge for many. Time is on your side.”

Anakin peered at Thrawn, then back to Padmé, his lips pressed together in a firm line. “I’ll tell you,” he said. “It’s my body. I can’t go out looking like this.” He moved his hands out of Padmé’s to grab onto the hem of his shirt, raising it up above his arms to hang around his neck like a loose circle scarf. Indeed, his torso was riddled with scars from front to back, the spoils of battles he’d been in over his many years with the Order. “I know you’re going to say that no one will be bothered, but I am,” he paused to take in a breath before letting out a long sigh. “Right now, I am.”

Padmé brushed the tips of her fingers along one of the scars just across his right ribs, causing him to do jump a little; her fingers were slightly cold. “I think your scars are a big part of you. I like them. I’m sorry to hear that they’re something you don’t.” This was all she could think to add. Stumped, she prayed that Thrawn would swoop in to the rescue again.

To her surprise, Thrawn hopped onto the bed and gracefully shuffled in front of Anakin, forcing the latter to pull in to a cross-legged position – unless he wanted Thrawn right on top of them. The Chiss shed the thin white shirt he wore like a snake did with its dead skin, peeling it away from his deep blue complexion. “Anakin, I, too, carry scars like these,” he said. Thrawn took one of Anakin’s hands and pressed the palm against his own stomach, then swept it slowly across. “They are not to be ashamed of.” 

Padmé’s own hand had once glided over those same scars; she knew of its roughness, its raised topology. Both Thrawn and Anakin’s bodies were so similar in those aspects – in comparison her own skin was smooth, well-cared for. The only scar she had was on her left thigh from a blaster wound eons ago. It wasn’t that she had not seen battle; perhaps she was just much more cautious – maybe she was just quicker with remembering the bacta.

Anakin’s eyes didn’t meet Thrawn’s. He was more than familiar with the Chiss’s scars, so the symbolism behind the action, of Thrawn so tenderly initiating physical contact outside of clearly delineated times and spaces, was not lost on him. In fact, he could already predict where this was heading – as always, it would be a losing battle when facing up against Thrawn. Even Padmés own inclination to well-fleshed out aggressive negotiations paled in comparison to Thrawn’s tactical genius, his reasoning and deduction that posessed a refreshed purpose in the realm of comfort and compassion, though those who didn’t know him might simply find him cold and distanced. But Padmé and Anakin knew him well enough to know that he truly had affection within him; everyone was different after all.

“Well, you look good with them,” Anakin grumbled, embarrassed. “They’re not as obvious as mine, too. I think Chiss heal much better, don’t you think?”

“The current subject is you, not my people or myself.” Thrawn firmly rebutted. “I cannot convince you of how you see yourself, but it seems necessary to express that I have no aversion to your body as it is, and neither does Padmé. Your scars, your alternative appendage – they have been essential to my knowledge of you and remain as such.”

“He’s right, Ani.” Padmé joined in. She could almost hear the gears starting to turn in Anakin’s head, slowly absorbing whatever Thrawn just said. “You know,” she added, “you could always just swim with your shirt on if you’re really not comfortable.”

“She is right as well.” Thrawn parroted. He and Padmé shared a quick glance, and they couldn’t help but smile warmly at each other. They were an excellent team, as it appeared. Anakin, catching on, waved his flesh-and-bone hand between the two of them, breaking up the moment.

“All right, all right!” He tugged his shirt back down over his torso and straightened up, folding his hands over his chest and put on his best smug look. “Hurry up before I change my mind.” 

Padmé placed a hand on Anakin’s shoulder and leaned in to plant a kiss on his cheek, then did the same for Thrawn. She got up from the edge of the bed and pulled open the curtains, letting the light flood into the room. Padmé turned to looked at Thrawn and Anakin, still seated on the bed, staring up at her, as the she was backlit by the sun. She was definitely grinning.

Padmé strolled over to her own wardrobe, which was a full adjacent walk-in room. “Now,” she announced, “why don’t you two help me pick out which swimsuit I should wear?”

She’d have to remember to get Anakin to pick all his clothes up later.

\---

By the time they reached the lake it felt like everything up till then had simply been in anticipation of this. The stellar beauty of it all – clear, lapping waters sparkling like diamonds while the tall trees beckoned cool winds through their rustling leaves – it all seemed so fairytale-like, yet the physical sensations it touched could not be denied. For the time being, Padmé forgot her worries of senate duties, Anakin’s own Jedi responsibilities, and Thrawn’s inevitable departure back to the ascendency – the last was something they had all been skirting around for a while. It seemed like a topic that would only drench a rare holiday together in a heavy smog of uncertainty.

She and Anakin indeed held their race-off immediately upon arrival, he insisting that it needed to be done immediately before his energy levels were “compromised.” Still, she won, naturally, with her own litheness. Anakin had emerged from the water afterwards looking dramatically sulky, blaming his loss on hydrodynamic drag thanks to his t-shirt. Meanwhile, Padmé had on her sporty high-neck crop top and matching bikini bottoms. “That has to be an advantage. Right, Thrawn?” Anakin looked to the Chiss for back-up, but now having spent enough time with them, he knew it was better to keep out of it. 

“I cannot confirm either as fact,” Thrawn replied hastily before snapping his green-framed goggles back on and submerging himself underwater.

“You are not getting out of this!” Anakin exclaimed, diving under to catch him.

Padmé returned to the shore, placing the towel underneath her and lay propped up on one elbow to watch Thrawn and Anakin playfighting, their arms and bodies causing violent splashes that she was happy to be away from. It made her think that perhaps this is how she and Sola must have looked like then, when they chased after each other, their movements slowed by the water grabbing at their legs and eventually tiring themselves out, much to their parents’ delight.

A large cloud drifted into the area of sky above them, blocking out the sun for a few seconds before being dragged on its way by the winds. In that moment Padmé found her mind unconsciously wandering to the things that lay ahead – everything that loomed over the galaxy, casting its own shadow like a dark cloud of its own, except no one, not even nature, could dispel it. And so she worked even harder than any force of nature could, trying to make a change in the senate and in the Republic. Too often that resulted in threats on her life. Was Anakin, or even Thrawn, always going to be there to watch her back? She couldn’t expect that.

As she turned her attention back to the two men – now Thrawn had roughly picked Anakin up and tossed him a distance away, his body hitting the water with a dull smack – she found herself regaining a sense of mindfulness. At least if anything ever happened to her, she knew that someone loved Anakin as much as she did, and would be there to look out for him.

Padmé lay back to close her eyes for a moment, exhausted from her race earlier. She dozed off to the sound of Anakin’s laughter – it sounded exactly like it had on their first unofficial date a lifetime ago; for a while, in her mind, she felt herself landing right back in the past. 

Later that night, as she lay awake between the two of them, fast asleep with their chests rising and lowering in a peaceful, symphonic rhythm, she found herself wondering if what she’d heard had simply been the beginning of a dream.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone who knows me by now knows that I love writing but I also struggle with it. Coming to fanfiction has allowed me to have fun and slowly chip away at long-held issues I've had with overwhelming perfectionism of the self (yes maybe the title is about me AND Anakin). Thank you to all who read my first fic and cheered me on in their own way. The comments I got, the kudos -- all that motivated me on this new work. It's much less serious now, and much shorter, but I enjoyed just thinking about how people can compliment each other in relationships. My own criticism (hah!) is that Anakin didn't struggle enough with his obstacle, but I didn't want to be holding on to this fic for so long that it never went out. Fanfics are like kids maybe? At some point they are birthed and released and you can't control what they become. But I digress.
> 
> I should say thank you Timothy Zahn for inspiring this work, which I suppose was in the making since reading Alliances (I didn't read it when it dropped though). And thank you to Thrawn fans, Anakin fans and Padmé fans. And thank you to C who mentioned body worship to me once, which this has nothing to do with but it did lead me to the beginning of it all. 
> 
> Last but not least thank you to you, reader, for getting to the end.
> 
> As usual this was not beta'd, so I apologise for any typos, mistakes, etc. For inaccuracies, please just close an eye and pretend. Constructive feedback, though, is welcome.


End file.
